The Foundations of Esotericism
GA 93a
3 November 1905, Berlin
Lecture XXIX
We will now throw yet more light on the hidden working of Karma and consider the Karmic relationships between peoples and individuals. Those who take earnestly the principle of not looking at the world materialistically, but who seek for explanations out of the spirit will understand this.
We have learned from history that illnesses which previously did not exist make their appearance in the course of evolution. So today, to begin with, we shall hear something about the origin of such illnesses as are connected with epochs and peoples.
We shall understand this from out of the spirit. The explanation the doctor gives is that this or that illness is caused by bacilli. We must however ask: where do the bacilli come from? They are just as much incarnated living beings as man. Of those beings too which act as disturbers of human life we must ask: Where do they come from? What has brought them into their present material existence? What were they before they incarnated?
Let us suppose, for example, that some nation or race is in its decline, is moving towards its downfall. It puts up a resistance. This resistance to its downfall is a spiritual expression of something that lives in the astral body of the nation in question. Were such a decline to concern only that which was to come to an end, then the feeling engendered would have no special effect upon others in the world. Let us assume however that it comes in conflict with another nation, plunging it into fear and anxiety and thus sets up a reaction in this other nation. Then we have a two-fold situation: the nation suffering decline, and what arises out of the confluence of the disturbance of the one people fighting against their own decline, and the fear and alarm of the other people. This is something lasting.
Let us take a particular case: the Mongolian onslaughts of the Middle Ages, when the Mongols came into conflict with the Europeans, spreading among them fear and alarm. Such fear and such alarm are then present in the peoples in question. When one looks at these attacking hordes, of which the Mongolians are the last, placing oneself in the mood of all these mediaeval peoples, one sees how the desperation of the last branches of the Fourth Root-Race and the fear and alarm engendered in the Europeans created spiritual forms. If such an onslaught were to be met with courage and love, then the putrefying substance would be dissolved. But fear, hate and alarm conserve such decaying forms and these provide a source of nourishment for beings such as bacilli. Later they incarnate in those material forms suitable for such an incarnation. Thus the decaying substances embedded themselves in the fear and alarm of the European peoples as seeds of decay. These are minute living beings. In this way arose the mediaeval disease, leprosy. It arose out of the decaying substance of the declining Mongolian peoples.
What then is the origin of those disturbers of human physical nature? They come from earlier spiritual causes, from sinfulness. This is Karma as it manifests in national communities. From this you can estimate how the moral life of a nation conditions the external life of the future. It lies in the power of a nation to care for its physical future through a corresponding moral life in the present.
All the European esoteric schools say that all the bacterial illnesses of modern times have a similar origin. The illnesses caused by bacilli are traced back to their spiritual origin. This is an esoteric tradition among the Rosicrucians and in other esoteric schools where these things are taught. A fundamental teaching exists in small circles of esoteric schools, the content of which is that in the seventies quite definite battles took place in the astral world which caused things to take a better turn, even though ... [Gap in text ...]. These events are called the battle between the hosts of the archangel known to Christian esotericism as Michael and the hosts of the god Mammon.76See later and more detailed presentations in for instance The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness. October 1917. (Typescript) Mammon is, on the one hand, the god of hindrances, who places destructive, hindering things in the path of progress. On the other hand one sees in this god Mammon the creator of quite definite forms which work disturbingly in human life just in the sphere of infectious illnesses. Certain infectious illnesses, unknown in earlier times, are brought about by the god Mammon.
We can estimate to what degree the esoteric schools must rouse a progressive thinking in the inmost depths of the human being when one realises that the actual source of these modern illnesses is nothing other than a retrogression, the longstanding conservatism of the so-called upper classes as opposed to the poverty-striken lower classes who are striving towards a new ... [Gap in text ...]. They are hindered, held back by what the god Mammon brings about. We find two forces confronting one another: the sentimental world of the declining upper classes, who like to preserve antiquated conditions, and the feeling of hatred in the lower classes—an astral life projected against the others by the masses. In this opposition esotericism again sees decaying substance and therein the cause of modern infectious illnesses. Whoever sees into these things will of course not take them as a reason for opposing modern medicine with its external remedies. But a real improvement will never come about through these external methods.
What will come about later always reveals itself in advance through esoteric knowledge. This consists of rightly perceiving how the morality of the present day can lead to better health in the future. One can judge from this how profound was the perception of those who introduced the Theosophical Movement into the world. It arose out of the knowledge of such relationships. It was foreseen that the threat of the War of All against All would take on ever more menacing forms. The things that must come about fulfil themselves with an inner necessity, just as events in the East develop like a fire there where there is especially inflammable material.77Refers probably to the outbreak of the Russian revolution of 1905 following the end of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904/05. See lecture 12.10.1905 The Present Situation of the World. War, Peace and the Science of the Spirit (Anthroposophic News Sheet Volume 1 3, Nos. 35 – 40). It would be senseless to wish to arrest such things. The appropriate and serviceable means to avert the War of All against All was sought by the Theosophical Movement through the spreading of the axiom of brotherhood. For brotherhood dissolves what streams into the world as means of decay, as hate. For as regards races we find ourselves on a downward path. If one were to believe that this downfall could be delayed and contained by hatred, not resolved by love, then naturally the very worst would follow. The Theosophical Movement would overcome this decline by love. Its founders know that the Theosophical Society is not only a remedy, but the source of the development of humanity as it goes into the future.
So one sees how the physical is a result of what preceded it spiritually and how in particular circumstances people have it in their power, through knowledge of certain relationships, to connect the physical with its spiritual origin. For example, if one knows how a particular illness is connected with particular feelings and emotions, he knows that by calling up these feelings he can also call up the illness. The black magician can make use of this knowledge to destroy the people. The deep occult truths can therefore not be taught to everyone without due consideration, for it would immediately bring about a sharp demarcation between good and evil. This is the danger inherent in the spreading of occult teachings, for no-one can be taught how to make people well, without at the same time learning how to make people ill. Where occult teachings have penetrated more into certain peoples such things have happened. There are districts in the East where one can hear true reports that there are sects who make it their task to produce definite illnesses. Thus we penetrate to an ever greater degree into the understanding of the ways in which the material arises out of the spiritual.
Now we will try to survey somewhat longer periods of time. We know that today there is a beautiful complementary interaction between everything that exists as animal life and the plant world. The plant makes use of carbon for itself and breathes out oxygen, thereby creating the source of life for all creatures in its surroundings who need to breathe. This source arises from the plant world. All that breathes today is there through the action of this mysterious workshop of the plant world. From this we can form a concept of how Worlds go under, how the World which preceded our Earth passed away. On the Old Moon breathing did not exist as it does now in human beings and animals. A quite different process took the place of the breathing process on the Old Moon. We can form a picture of the earlier process when we look at something remaining over from this time: the varying warmth of animals which develop the same temperature as their surroundings. On the Moon there was warmth or fire breathing. The inhaling and exhaling of fire or warmth corresponded at that time to the present day inhaling and exhaling of the air. In the middle of the Lemurian Age the breathing process began to take on the form it has today.
The spiritual process of the embedding of the Monad in the lower man finds its material reflection in breathing. Breathing signifies the inhaling of the Monad. In Hatha Yoga therefore the pupil goes through a breathing process. He regulates rhythmically what man has today as a natural process in order to bring breathing under his control. Just as before man advanced to this process of breathing, he inhaled and exhaled warmth, transforming this into the circulation of the warm blood, so the pupil of Hatha Yoga seeks to form the breathing process into something inward, to bring it inwardly under his control. The Hatha Yoga rules signify the transformation of the breath into a process that does not go from within outwards, but is inwardly regulated, just as today the circulation of the blood is also inwardly regulated. In the case of animals with variable temperature the process of blood circulation has the same relationship to that of human beings as the breathing process of the Hatha Yoga pupil. Behind all these things lie deep thoughts concerning evolution which ought to be the foundation of real processes.
What today is usually not understood is that in the air there is something spiritual. When there was still a consciousness of this, spirit was called: Air, Wind = Pneuma. Pneuma means a current of air and also the soul-spiritual. This terminology stems from times in which one still had a consciousness of the true connections. Let us now take the fact that on the predecessor of our Earth (the Old Moon) certain beings had evolved beyond the stage of the human evolution of that time. These were the Luciferic beings. When one considers these beings one must say: They did not live in an environment such as the Earth has today. They could not breathe air, thus they could not take in the spirit, for the taking in of spirit corresponds to the breathing of air. They were obliged to carry out in the warmth-principle what today takes place in the air. We differentiate on the Earth seven conditions of the physical: Firstly Life-ether, Secondly Chemical-ether, Thirdly Light-ether, Fourthly Warmth-ether, Fifthly Air, Sixthly Water, Seventhly Solid. Thus the Luciferic Beings had to carry out in warmth what man today carries out in air. Now you can understand that owing to this, these Beings who gave man his separate consciousness, his independence, are in a certain sense connected with fire. For this reason, when they make their appearance, it is connected with a certain craving for everything that manifests in man as heat, as fire. The craving attaches itself to man's individual warmth. So the donors of knowledge and freedom are bound up with something which seeks to incarnate in the element of warmth in man in a similar way to how this happened on the Old Moon. This is the connection between knowledge and birth and death, illness and so on in the world. With knowledge, birth, death and illness came into the world. This was the price man paid for knowledge. We see therefore also the connection between certain heat phenomena and illness, namely fever. This is the origin of fever. Traditions of this lingered on into the 19th century.
In the earlier Planetary conditions, the forerunners of our Earth, we had not to do as yet with human beings, animals, plants and minerals as they are today. At that time beings existed who had not yet descended so deeply as present-day animals, nor yet ascended so high as present-day man. At that time plants did not exhale oxygen. Oxygen, this breath of life, did not as yet exist. Only with the coming into being of our plant kingdom did nitrogen become mingled with oxygen. The Moon was surrounded by an atmosphere of nitrogen. In the second half of this previous Planet the beings did certainly already strive towards such forms as could breathe, which were endowed with lungs and so on; but only in our present Earth-Cycle did the plant kingdom evolve as it is now. The animal beings then developed the organs of breathing. They pushed the plant kingdom a stage lower, in order that it should provide oxygen for breathing.
These processes on the predecessor of our Earth had to be followed by a condition where life in the same form was no longer possible. The form had developed into something else and needed a new Planet. The preceding Planet had to meet its end; everything living suffocated. Thus do the Planets with their life perish, and from what has been prepared a new life evolves in the body of the Mother Planet. This is how the decline and uprising of Planetary evolution is to be understood.
Just as man previously had the other kingdoms within himself, so today he still has the evil in his Karma within him. This he is now working out of himself. In the future good and evil will be there in external forms, a race of the good and a kingdom of the evil side by side. At that future time the human countenance will appear in transfigured form out of the separated, downward-thrust evil of animality. Let us think of the transfigured human countenance that today slumbers like a riddle in animal matter, separated from the animal evil and represented symbolically. You can represent it to yourselves in no better way than in the great intuition of the Egyptian Sphinx. This not only points back to the past, but it also points towards the future. Not for nothing did the old Egyptians place the Sphinx in front of the Temple of Initiation. Initiation is the implanting of the secret of the future into human souls. At the entrance to the Temple it was through the Sphinx that the milieu for initiation was already created.
What outwardly is the body of oxygen is inwardly the Monad. As soon as oxygen appeared on the Earth the Monad had the possibility of incarnating. It is an attempt to possess the Monad when the pupil breathes in much oxygen and endeavours to retain it. Oxygen is not only something externally material. One must examine oxygen in the light of its spirit. Thus outwardly we have oxygen and inwardly the Monad. Oxygen therefore in the Lemurian Age formed the body for the descending sons of Manas.
XXIX
Nun wollen wir in noch geheimnisvollere Gebiete des Karmawirkens hineinleuchten und einen Blick in das karmische Wirken innerhalb der Völker- und Menschenzusammenhänge tun. Wer Ernst macht mit dem Prinzip, die Welt nicht aus materiellen Prinzipien, sondern aus dem Geiste heraus zu erklären, wird das verstehen.
Man hat durch die Geschichte erfahren, daß Krankheiten im Laufe der Menschheitsentwickelung auftreten, die früher nicht da waren. Es gibt Zeit- und Volkskrankheiten. Nun werden wir heute etwas hören zunächst über die Entstehung solcher Zeit- und Volkskrankheiten. Aus dem Geiste heraus wollen wir das begreifen. Der Arzt erklärt sie, indem er sagt, diese oder jene Krankheiten kommen durch die Bazillen. Wir aber müssen fragen: Woher kommen die Bazillen selber? — Sie sind genauso inkarnierte Lebewesen wie der Mensch. Auch bei solchen Wesen, die als Zerstörer des Menschenlebens wirken, müssen wir fragen: Woher kommen sie? Was hat sie hineingebracht in ihr gegenwärtiges materielles Dasein? Was waren sie, bevor sie sich inkarniert haben?
Nehmen wir zum Beispiel an, irgendein Volk oder eine Rasse geht zugrunde, sie geht ihrem Untergange entgegen. Sie wehrt sich gegen diesen Untergang. Dieses Sich-Wehren gegen den Untergang ist ein geistiger Ausdruck, etwas, das in dem Astralkörper des betreffenden Volkes lebt. Würde solch ein untergehendes Volk für sich allein hinsterben, so würden die Gefühle, die sich da ausleben, keine besondere Wirkung haben auf andere in der Welt. Nehmen wir aber an, daß es mit einem anderen Volke in Konflikt kommt und das andere in Furcht und Schrecken versetzt, so entsteht bei dem anderen Volke eine Wirkung. Dann haben wir zweierlei: Das untergehende Volk und etwas, was entsteht aus dem Zusammenflusse zwischen dem sich gegen den Untergang wehrenden Volke und dem, was entsteht aus Furcht und Schrecken bei dem anderen Volke. Das ist etwas Bleibendes.
Nehmen wir als Beispiel einen speziellen Fall: die Mongolenstürme des Mittelalters, als die Mongolen mit den europäischen Völkerschaften zusammenstoßen und innerhalb dieser Völkerschaften Furcht und Schrecken verbreiten. Solche Furcht und solcher Schrecken sind dann in den Völkern vorhanden. Wenn man diese Völkermassen ansieht, die da heranstürmten, von denen die Mongolenstürme die letzten sind, und sich in die Stimmung der ganzen mittelalterlichen Völkerschaften versetzt, so sieht man, wie sich aus den untergehenden, sich ihrer Haut wehrenden letzten Stämmen der vierten Wurzelrasse und den in Furcht und Schrecken versetzten Europäern, geistige Gebilde formten. Man nehme an, einem solchen Ansturm würde mit Kühnheit und Liebe begegnet, so würden die Verwesungsstoffe aufgelöst. Aber Furcht, Haß und Schrecken konservieren solche verwesenden Gebilde, und Wesen wie Bazillen finden daher einen Nährboden. Sie inkarnieren sich später in denjenigen materiellen Gebilden, die für ihre Inkarnation geeignet sind. So haben sich in die Furcht und den Schrecken der europäischen Völker die Verwesungsstoffe als Verwesungssamen eingebettet. Und das sind kleine Lebewesen. So entstand der mittelalterliche Aussatz, die Miselsucht. Das waren Verwesungsstoffe der untergehenden Mongolenvölker.
Woher kommen nun jene Zerstörer der menschlichen physischen Natur? Sie kommen von früheren geistigen Ingredienzien, von Versündigungen. Das ist das Karma, wie es in den Volkskörpern wirkt. Daraus können Sie ermessen, wie das moralische Leben eines Volkes das äußere Leben der Zukunft bedingt. Ein Volk hat es in der Hand, für die physische Zukunft durch ein entsprechendes moralisches Leben in der Gegenwart zu sorgen.
In allen Geheimschulen Europas spricht man davon, daß die ganzen Bakterienkrankheiten der modernen Zeit einen ähnlichen Ursprung haben. Die Bazillenkrankheiten werden auf ihren geistigen Ursprung zurückgeführt. Das ist eine esoterische Tradition bei den Rosenkreuzern und in anderen Geheimschulen, wo diese Dinge gelehrt werden. Eine Grundlehre gibt es in kleinen Kreisen von Geheimschulen, die besteht darin, daß in den siebziger Jahren ganz bestimmte Kämpfe innerhalb der astralen Welt stattfanden, und daß sich da etwas zum Besseren gewendet hat, wenn auch... (Lücke im Text.) Diese Vorgänge nennt man den Kampf zwischen den Scharen des aus der christlichen Esoterik genommenen Erzengels Michael und den Scharen des Gottes Mammon. Mammon ist der Gott der Hindernisse, der der fortschreitenden Bewegung die zerstörenden, hindernden Dinge in den Weg legt. Auf der anderen Seite sieht man in diesem Gotte Mammon den Erzeuger ganz bestimmter Gebilde, solcher Gebilde, die eben in den Infektionskrankheiten auf das menschliche Leben zerstörend wirken. Die in früheren Zeiten unbekannten Infektionskrankheiten rühren von dem Gotte Mammon her.
Sie werden ermessen können, daß die esoterischen Schulen die fortschrittliche Gesinnung im tiefsten Inneren des Menschen erzeugen müssen, denn man sieht als den eigentlichen Urquell dieser modernen Krankheiten nichts anderes als die Rückschrittlichkeit, den Urkonservatismus der sogenannten oberen Klassen gegenüber den verarmten unteren Klassen, den gedrückten Volksmassen, die zustreben einer neuen... (Lücke im Text.) Sie werden gehemmt, aufgehalten durch das, was der Gott Mammon bewirkt. Zwei Mächte finden wir einander gegenüberstehend: die Empfindungswelt der untergehenden oberen Schichten, die uralte Zeiten konservieren möchten, und das Gefühl des Hasses bei den unteren Klassen, ein astralisches Leben, das von den großen Massen den anderen entgegengeschleudert wird. In diesem Gegensatz sieht der Esoterismus wieder einen Verwesungsstoff und darin die Ursache der modernen Infektionskrankheiten. Wer diese Dinge durchschaut, wird sich selbstverständlich darum doch nicht gegen die Versuche der modernen Medizin mit ihren äußerlichen Mitteln wenden. Aber eine wirkliche Besserung wird nie auf diesem äußeren Wege kommen.
Was später auftritt, zeigt sich vorher immer schon durch die Erkenntnis der Esoterik. Sie besteht in dem richtigen Durchschauen dessen, daß man mit der Moral der Gegenwart die bessere Gesundheit in der Zukunft herbeiführen kann. Man kann hieraus wiederum ermessen, wie tief diejenigen zu schauen vermochten, die die theosophische Bewegung in die Welt eingeführt haben. Sie ist entstanden aus der Erkenntnis solcher Zusammenhänge. Man hat vorausgesehen, daß der Drang des Kampfes aller gegen alle immer schärfere Formen annehmen wird. Die Dinge, die da kommen müssen, vollziehen sich mit einer inneren Notwendigkeit, so wie die Dinge im Osten sich entwickeln wie ein Feuer, wo ein besonders brennbares Material da ist. Es wäre unsinnig, solche Dinge aufhalten zu wollen. Die passenden und brauchbaren Mittel, um den Kampf aller gegen alle aus dem Wege zu schaffen, suchte schon die theosophische Bewegung durch die Verbreitung des Grundsatzes der Brüderlichkeit. Denn die Verbrüderung löst auf, was an Verwesungsstoffen, was an Haß in die Welt strömt. Und wir stehen, was Rassen betrifft, in einem Niedergang. Wird dieser Niedergang durch den Glauben, daß man ihn aufhalten könnte, und durch Haß konserviert, und nicht durch Liebe aufgelöst, so muß natürlich das Allerschlimmste daraus folgen. Die theosophische Bewegung will ihn durch Liebe auflösen. Die Begründer derselben wissen, daß die Theosophische Gesellschaft nicht nur Heilmittel, sondern die Quelle für die Entwickelung der Menschheit in die Zukunft hinein ist.
So sieht man, wie das Physische eine Folge des vorhergehenden Geistigen ist, und wie die Menschen es unter Umständen in der Hand haben, durch Kenntnis der Zusammenhänge das Physische mit seinem geistigen Ursprung zu verbinden. Wer zum Beispiel weiß, wie eine bestimmte Krankheit zusammenhängt mit bestimmten Empfindungen und Gefühlen, der weiß, daß er durch das Hervorrufen dieser Gefühle auch die Krankheit hervorrufen kann. Der schwarze Magier kann dieses Wissen zum Verderben der Masse verwenden. Deshalb können die tieferen okkulten Wahrheiten nicht ohne weiteres allen gelehrt werden, da sie sofort eine scharfe Trennung in Gute und Böse veranlassen würden. Das ist das Gefährliche bei der Verbreitung der okkulten Lehren. Denn man kann niemanden lehren gesund zu machen, ohne gleichzeitig zu lehren krank zu machen. Wo okkulte Lehren mehr ins Volk gedrungen sind, da sind solche Dinge vorgekommen. In gewissen Gegenden des Morgenlandes kann man die wahren Berichte darüber hören, daß es Sekten gibt, die sich das Erzeugen von bestimmten Krankheiten zur Aufgabe machen. — So dringt man immer mehr ein in die Erklärung des Materiellen aus dem Geistigen.
Wir wollen nun versuchen, jetzt über etwas größere Zeiträume hinüberzublicken. Man weiß, daß heute eine schöne Ergänzung besteht zwischen alledem, was tierisch lebt und der Pflanzenwelt. Die Pflanze verwendet den Kohlenstoff für sich und atmet den Sauerstoff aus und schafft dadurch fortwährend den Quell für dasjenige, was ringsherum tierisch atmen soll. Dieser Quell entspringt der pflanzlichen Welt. Alles was heute atmet, ist da durch das Wirken dieser geheimnisvollen Werkstätte der Pflanzenwelt. Hieraus kann man sich einen Begriff verschaffen, wie Welten untergehen; wie die Welt unterging, die unserer Erde voranging. Das Atmen war auf dem Monde nicht so vorhanden, wie es heute bei Tier und Mensch ist. Ein ganz anderer Prozeß war anstelle des Atmungsprozesses auf dem Monde; der ging allmählich in das Atmen über. Man kann sich ein Bild des früheren Prozesses machen, wenn wir auf ein Überbleibsel dieser Zeit sehen: die wechselwarmen Tiere, die die gleiche Wärme wie die Umgebung haben. Auf dem Monde war Feuer- oder Wärmeatmung vorhanden. Das Aufnehmen und Ausgeben von Feuer oder Wärme entsprach damals dem jetzigen Aufnehmen und Ausgeben der Luft. In der Mitte der lemurischen Zeit fing der Atmungsprozeß an, die Form anzunehmen, die er heute hat.
Ein materielles Abbild des geistigen Vorganges der Einbettung der Monade in den niederen Menschen ist das Atmen. Atmen heißt: das Einziehen der Monade. Im Hathajoga macht der Schüler deshalb auch einen Atmungsprozeß durch. Der Schüler regelt rhythmisch, was der Mensch als natürlichen Vorgang hat, um das Atmen, das heute ein natürlicher Vorgang ist, unter seine Herrschaft zu bekommen. So wie, bevor der Mensch zu diesem Atmungsprozeß überging, er in ähnlicher Weise von außen Wärme aufnahm und abgab und dieses sich in den Prozeß des zirkulierenden warmen Blutes verwandelte, so sucht der Hathajoga-Schüler auch den Atmungsprozeß zu einem inneren zu gestalten, ihn innerlich in seine Gewalt zu bekommen. Die Hathajoga-Regeln bedeuten die Verwandlung der Atmung in einen solchen Prozeß, der nicht von innen nach außen geht, sondern in einen innerlich geregelten Prozeß, so wie jetzt auch der Blutkreislauf ein geregelter innerer Prozeß ist. Bei den wechselwarmen Tieren verhält sich der Prozeß der Blutzirkulation zu demjenigen des Menschen so, wie der Atmungsprozeß beim gewöhnlichen Menschen zu dem Atmungsprozeß des Hathajoga-Schülers. Hinter all diesen Dingen stecken ganz tiefe Entwickelungsgedanken, die die Grundlage von realen Prozessen sein sollen.
Was jetzt gewöhnlich gar nicht mehr verstanden wird, ist, daß in der Luft etwas vorhanden ist, was geistig ist. Als noch ein Bewußtsein davon vorhanden war, nannte man den Geist: Luft, Wind = Pneuma. «Pneuma» bedeutet einen Luftzug und auch das SeelischGeistige. Die Bezeichnung rührt von Zeiten her, in denen man noch von den wirklichen Zusammenhängen ein Bewußtsein hatte. Nehmen wir nun die Tatsache, daß sich auf dem Vorgänger unserer Erde (Mond) gewisse Wesenheiten über die damalige Menschheitsstufe hinaus entwickelt hatten. Es waren dies die luziferischen Wesenheiten. Wenn man diese betrachtet, muß man sich aber sagen: sie lebten nicht in einer Umgebung, die wie die heutige Erde ist. Sie konnten nicht in Luft atmen, also konnten sie auch nicht den Geist aufnehmen. Denn die Aufnahme von Geist entspricht der Luftatmung. Also waren sie genötigt, dasjenige im Wärmeprinzip auszuführen, was heute in der Luft geschieht. Wir unterscheiden auf der Erde sieben Zustände des Physischen: Erstens Lebensäther; zweitens chemischer Äther; drittens Lichtäther; viertens Wärmeäther; fünftens Luft; sechstens Wasser; siebentens Festes. Die luziferischen Wesenheiten mußten also innerhalb der Wärme dasselbe ausführen, was der Mensch heute in der Luft ausführt. Nun können Sie sich denken, daß daher diese Wesenheiten, die dem Menschen das freie Bewußtsein, die Selbständigkeit gegeben haben, in gewisser Weise mit dem Feuer verknüpft sind. Sie sind bei ihrem Auftreten aus diesem Grunde mit einer gewissen Gier geknüpft an alles dasjenige, was im Menschen als Wärme, als Feuer auftritt. Die Gier hängt sich an die Eigenwärme des Menschen. So sind die Geber der Erkenntnis und Freiheit mit etwas verknüpft, das sich zu inkarnieren versucht in der Wärme des Menschen nach der Art, wie es früher auf dem Monde geschah. Das ist der Zusammenhang zwischen der Erkenntnis und zwischen Geburt und Tod, Krankheit und so weiter in der Welt. Mit der Erkenntnis kamen Geburt und Tod und Krankheit in die Welt; der Mensch hat damit die Erkenntnis erkauft. Daher sehen wir auch den Zusammenhang zwischen gewissen Wärmeerscheinungen und der Krankheit, nämlich dem Fieber. Das ist der Ursprung des Fiebers. Davon hatte man noch Traditionen bis in das 19. Jahrhundert.
Bei dem früheren Planeten, dem Vorgänger unserer Erde, hatte man es noch nicht mit Menschen, Tieren, Pflanzen und Mineralien, wie sie heute sind, zu tun. Damals bestanden drei Reiche, die zwischen den unseren lagen. Es waren da als ein oberstes Reich Wesen, die noch nicht so tief herabgesunken waren wie die heutigen Tiere, und noch nicht so hoch heraufgekommen wie der heutige Mensch. Damals atmeten die Pflanzen auch noch nicht Sauerstoff aus. Sauerstoff, diese Lebensluft, gab es damals noch nicht. Erst mit der Entstehung unseres Pflanzenreiches wurde in den Stickstoff der Sauerstoff gemischt. Der Mond war umgeben mit einer Stickstoffatmosphäre. In der zweiten Hälfte des vergangenen Planeten strebten zwar die Wesenheiten schon zu solchen Gestalten, die atmen können, die mit Lungen und so weiter begabt sind, aber erst in dem Zyklus unserer Erde bildet sich das jetzige Pflanzenreich aus. Es entwickelten die tierischen Wesenheiten dann die Organe zum Atmen. Sie drängten das Pflanzenreich um eine Stufe herunter, damit es ihnen Sauerstoff zum Atmen gäbe.
Auf diese Vorgänge auf dem Vorgänger unserer Erde mußte notwendig ein Zustand folgen, wo das Leben in derselben Form nicht mehr möglich war. Die Form hatte sich zu etwas anderem herausgebildet und brauchte einen neuen Planeten. Das vorhergehende Reich mußte untergehen. Es erstickte die ganze Welt des Lebenden auf dem vorhergehenden Planeten. So gehen Planeten mit ihrem Leben zugrunde, und in dem, was sich vorbereitet, in dem Körper des Mutterplaneten entwickelt sich ein neues Leben. So ist der Untergang und Aufgang von Planeten zu verstehen.
Heute lebt der Mensch so, daß er, wie er früher die anderen Reiche in sich gehabt hat, das Böse in seinem Karma noch in sich hat. Das arbeitet er jetzt aus sich heraus. Zukünftig wird Gutes und Böses in äußeren Formen da sein, eine Rasse der Guten und ein Reich der Bösen nebeneinander. In der Zukunft blickt das Menschenantlitz in verklärter Gestalt hervor aus dem abgesonderten, hinuntergestoßenen Bösen des Tierischen. Denken wir uns das verklärte Menschenantlitz, das heute wie ein Rätsel schlummert in der tierischen Materie, abgesondert von dem Tierisch-Bösen und symbolisch dargestellt - Sie können es sich nicht besser [dargestellt denken] als in der großen Intuition der ägyptischen Sphinx. Sie ist nicht etwas, was nur auf die Vergangenheit weist, sondern sie weist auch auf die Zukunft hin. Das Rätsel der Sphinx — umgesetzt in die griechische Sage - ist das Rätsel des Menschen. Nicht umsonst haben die alten Ägypter die Sphinx hingesetzt vor die Tempel der Initiation. Initiation ist das Verpflanzen des Zukunftsgeheimnisses in die Seelen. Beim Eingang in die Tempel war durch die Sphinx schon das Milieu geschaffen für die Initiation.
Was äußerlich den Sauerstoff als Leib hat, das ist innerlich die Monade. Sobald Sauerstoff auf der Erde auftritt, hat die Monade die Fähigkeit, sich zu inkarnieren. Es ist die Sucht, die Monade für sich zu bekommen, wenn der Schüler viel Sauerstoff einzuatmen und in sich zu behalten sucht. Sauerstoff ist nicht nur etwas materiell Äußerliches. Man muß den Sauerstoff seinem Geist nach untersuchen. So haben wir äußerlich Sauerstoff, innerlich die Monade. Der Atmungsprozeß bildete daher in der lemurischen Zeit den Körper für die herabsteigenden Söhne des Manas.
XXIX
Now let us shed light on even more mysterious areas of karmic activity and take a look at karmic activity within the context of peoples and human beings. Anyone who takes seriously the principle of explaining the world not from material principles but from the spirit will understand this.
History has taught us that diseases have appeared in the course of human development that did not exist before. There are diseases of the times and diseases of the people. Today we will hear something about the origin of such diseases of the times and diseases of the people. We want to understand this from the spirit. The doctor explains them by saying that these or those diseases are caused by germs. But we must ask: Where do the germs themselves come from? — They are incarnated beings just like human beings. Even with such beings, which act as destroyers of human life, we must ask: Where do they come from? What brought them into their present material existence? What were they before they incarnated?
Let us suppose, for example, that a certain people or race is perishing, heading toward its downfall. It resists this downfall. This resistance to downfall is a spiritual expression, something that lives in the astral body of the people in question. If such a dying people were to die out on its own, the feelings that are lived out there would have no particular effect on others in the world. But let us assume that it comes into conflict with another people and strikes fear and terror into them, then this has an effect on the other people. Then we have two things: the dying people and something that arises from the confluence between the people defending themselves against destruction and what arises from fear and terror in the other people. This is something lasting.
Let us take a specific case as an example: the Mongol invasions of the Middle Ages, when the Mongols clashed with the European peoples and spread fear and terror among them. Such fear and terror then existed among the peoples. If one looks at these masses of people who stormed in, of which the Mongol invasions were the last, and puts oneself in the mood of the entire medieval peoples, one can see how spiritual entities were formed from the dying, self-defending last tribes of the fourth root race and the Europeans who were filled with fear and terror. Suppose such an onslaught were met with boldness and love, then the decaying substances would be dissolved. But fear, hatred, and terror preserve such decaying formations, and beings such as bacilli therefore find a breeding ground. They later incarnate in those material formations that are suitable for their incarnation. Thus, the decaying substances have embedded themselves in the fear and terror of the European peoples as seeds of decay. And these are small living beings. This is how medieval leprosy, “misery” disease, came into being. These were the decaying substances of the declining Mongol peoples.
Where do these destroyers of human physical nature come from? They come from earlier spiritual ingredients, from sins. This is karma as it works in the bodies of peoples. From this you can gauge how the moral life of a people determines its future external life. It is in the hands of a people to provide for its physical future by living a corresponding moral life in the present.
In all the secret schools of Europe, it is said that all the bacterial diseases of modern times have a similar origin. Bacterial diseases are traced back to their spiritual origin. This is an esoteric tradition among the Rosicrucians and in other secret schools where these things are taught. There is a basic teaching in small circles of secret schools that in the 1970s, very specific battles took place within the astral world, and that something has changed for the better, even if... (gap in the text). These events are called the battle between the hosts of the Archangel Michael, taken from Christian esotericism, and the hosts of the god Mammon. Mammon is the god of obstacles, who places destructive, hindering things in the way of progressive movement. On the other hand, this god Mammon is seen as the creator of very specific entities, entities that have a destructive effect on human life in the form of infectious diseases. Infectious diseases unknown in earlier times originate from the god Mammon.
You will be able to appreciate that esoteric schools must generate a progressive mindset in the deepest innermost part of human beings, for the actual source of these modern diseases is seen to be nothing other than the backwardness, the primal conservatism of the so-called upper classes towards the impoverished lower classes, the oppressed masses of people who are striving for a new... (Gap in the text.) They are inhibited, held back by the effects of the god Mammon. We find two opposing forces: the emotional world of the declining upper classes, who want to preserve ancient times, and the feeling of hatred among the lower classes, an astral life that is hurled at others by the great masses. Esotericism sees in this contrast a source of decay and the cause of modern infectious diseases. Those who understand these things will of course not turn against the attempts of modern medicine with its external remedies. But real improvement will never come through these external means.
What happens later is always revealed in advance through esoteric knowledge. It consists in the correct understanding that the morality of the present can bring about better health in the future. From this, we can again gauge how deeply those who introduced the theosophical movement into the world were able to see. It arose from the recognition of such connections. It was foreseen that the urge to fight everyone against everyone else would take on ever more acute forms. The things that must come about are taking place with an inner necessity, just as things in the East develop like a fire where there is particularly flammable material. It would be nonsensical to want to stop such things. The theosophical movement has already sought the appropriate and useful means to eliminate the struggle of all against all by spreading the principle of brotherhood. For brotherhood dissolves what flows into the world in the form of decaying matter and hatred. And as far as races are concerned, we are in a state of decline. If this decline is preserved by the belief that it can be stopped and by hatred, and not dissolved by love, then of course the worst possible outcome will follow. The theosophical movement wants to dissolve it through love. Its founders know that the Theosophical Society is not only a remedy, but also the source for the development of humanity into the future.
Thus, one can see how the physical is a consequence of the preceding spiritual, and how, under certain circumstances, people have it in their power to connect the physical with its spiritual origin through knowledge of the connections. For example, anyone who knows how a certain illness is connected with certain sensations and feelings knows that by evoking these feelings, they can also evoke the illness. The black magician can use this knowledge to destroy the masses. That is why the deeper occult truths cannot simply be taught to everyone, as they would immediately cause a sharp division between good and evil. That is the danger in spreading occult teachings. For one cannot teach anyone to make healthy without at the same time teaching them to make sick. Where occult teachings have penetrated more deeply into the population, such things have occurred. In certain parts of the Orient, one can hear true reports of sects that have made it their task to cause certain illnesses. — Thus, one penetrates more and more into the explanation of the material from the spiritual.
Let us now try to look across somewhat longer periods of time. We know that today there is a beautiful complementarity between all animal life and the plant world. Plants use carbon for themselves and exhale oxygen, thereby continuously creating the source for what is to breathe around them. This source springs from the plant world. Everything that breathes today exists through the work of this mysterious workshop of the plant world. From this, we can gain an understanding of how worlds come to an end; how the world that preceded our Earth came to an end. Breathing did not exist on the Moon in the same way that it does today in animals and humans. A completely different process took place on the Moon instead of the breathing process; it gradually transitioned into breathing. We can get an idea of the earlier process when we look at a remnant of that time: cold-blooded animals, which have the same temperature as their surroundings. Fire or heat breathing existed on the Moon. The absorption and release of fire or heat corresponded at that time to the present absorption and release of air. In the middle of the Lemurian epoch, the breathing process began to take on the form it has today.
Breathing is a material reflection of the spiritual process of embedding the monad in the lower human being. Breathing means drawing in the monad. In Hatha yoga, the student therefore also undergoes a breathing process. The student rhythmically regulates what is a natural process for humans in order to gain control over breathing, which is a natural process today. Just as, before humans transitioned to this breathing process, they absorbed and released heat from the outside in a similar way, and this was transformed into the process of circulating warm blood, so too does the Hatha Yoga student seek to make the breathing process an internal one, to gain control of it internally. The rules of Hatha Yoga mean the transformation of breathing into a process that does not go from the inside to the outside, but into an internally regulated process, just as the blood circulation is now a regulated internal process. In cold-blooded animals, the process of blood circulation relates to that of humans in the same way as the breathing process in ordinary humans relates to the breathing process of the Hatha Yoga student. Behind all these things lie very profound ideas of development, which are supposed to be the basis of real processes.
What is now usually no longer understood is that there is something in the air that is spiritual. When there was still an awareness of this, the spirit was called: air, wind = pneuma. “Pneuma” means a draft of air and also the soul-spiritual. The term originates from times when people were still aware of the real connections. Let us now consider the fact that on the predecessor of our Earth (the Moon), certain beings had developed beyond the level of humanity at that time. These were the Luciferic beings. When we consider them, however, we must say to ourselves: they did not live in an environment like that of today's Earth. They could not breathe air, so they could not absorb spirit either. For the absorption of spirit corresponds to the breathing of air. So they were compelled to carry out in the warmth principle what today takes place in the air. We distinguish seven states of the physical on Earth: first, life ether; second, chemical ether; third, light ether; fourth, heat ether; fifth, air; sixth, water; seventh, solid. The Luciferic beings therefore had to carry out within heat the same thing that human beings carry out today in air. Now you can imagine that these beings, who gave human beings free consciousness and independence, are in a certain way connected with fire. For this reason, when they appear, they are linked with a certain greed to everything that appears in human beings as warmth, as fire. This greed attaches itself to the human being's own warmth. Thus, the givers of knowledge and freedom are linked to something that tries to incarnate itself in the warmth of human beings in the same way as it did earlier on the Moon. This is the connection between knowledge and birth and death, illness, and so on in the world. With knowledge came birth and death and illness into the world; human beings have paid for knowledge with this. This is why we also see the connection between certain manifestations of warmth and illness, namely fever. This is the origin of fever. Traditions about this still existed into the 19th century.
On the earlier planet, the predecessor of our Earth, there were not yet humans, animals, plants, and minerals as we know them today. At that time, there were three kingdoms that lay between ours. In the highest realm there were beings who had not yet sunk as low as today's animals, nor risen as high as today's humans. At that time, plants did not yet exhale oxygen. Oxygen, the air of life, did not yet exist. It was only with the emergence of our plant kingdom that oxygen was mixed into the nitrogen. The moon was surrounded by a nitrogen atmosphere. In the second half of the past planet, the beings already strove to become creatures that could breathe, that were endowed with lungs and so on, but it was not until the cycle of our Earth that the current plant kingdom developed. The animal beings then developed the organs for breathing. They pushed the plant kingdom down a level so that it would provide them with oxygen to breathe.
These events on the predecessor of our Earth were necessarily followed by a state in which life in the same form was no longer possible. The form had developed into something else and needed a new planet. The previous kingdom had to perish. It suffocated the entire world of living beings on the previous planet. This is how planets perish with their life, and in what is being prepared, in the body of the mother planet, a new life develops. This is how the decline and rise of planets is to be understood.
Today, human beings live in such a way that, just as they once had the other kingdoms within them, they still have evil within them in their karma. They are now working this out of themselves. In the future, good and evil will exist in external forms, a race of good and a realm of evil side by side. In the future, the human face will shine forth in a transfigured form from the separated, cast-down evil of the animal realm. Let us imagine the transfigured human face, which today slumbers like a riddle in animal matter, separated from the animalistic evil and symbolically represented — you cannot imagine it better than in the great intuition of the Egyptian sphinx. It is not something that only points to the past, but also points to the future. The riddle of the Sphinx — translated into Greek legend — is the riddle of man. It is not for nothing that the ancient Egyptians placed the Sphinx in front of the temples of initiation. Initiation is the transplantation of the secret of the future into the soul. At the entrance to the temples, the Sphinx had already created the environment for initiation.
What has oxygen as its outer body is the monad within. As soon as oxygen appears on earth, the monad has the ability to incarnate. It is the addiction to obtain the monad for oneself when the student seeks to inhale a lot of oxygen and keep it within. Oxygen is not just something material and external. One must examine oxygen in terms of its spirit. Thus, we have oxygen externally and the monad internally. The process of breathing therefore formed the body for the descending Sons of Manas in the Lemurian period.